Thank you for reading this article. Now, before I begin, I'd like to collect the phone numbers and home addresses for each and every one of you. I'm not sure what I'll do with them yet, but I think they'll be great to havejust in case. To accept, click the PCMag.com home button. To reject, well, just keep reading.

Ludicrous, right? Why would I ask you for that personal information? Hopefully you're not the kind of person who skims an article or perhaps reads from the bottom up or skips boring paragraphs. If so, you might have missed my request and perhaps opted in by clicking on the PCMag logo (okay, nothing happens when you do that). It's hard to know what I'm asking for, why I want it, and even how to not opt in—or is it opt out? This is the dilemma faced by Facebook as it tries and tries to figure out a smart way to let all of its app partners gain access to available phone numbers and addresses stored in the millions and millions of Facebook accounts.

Now, I have no idea why any Facebook user would ever store their phone number or address on the social network. This seems like a very bad idea. Yet it's clear people do and that Facebook knows this. Not because it's looking at the actual numbers and addresses, but because it sees that the fields in its massive database are filled in. That specific personal data is, of course, a gold mine for companies looking to connect their partners with potential consumers.

Here's how it might work. Imagine an app on Facebook that is simply a game. We'll call it "Moon-ville," a highly engaging social app where Facebook users spend hours and hours building a faux space station, and working on developing moon communities. They pay for everything with moon rocks. It's all good fun. The company behind the game has collected a network of major and minor merchants with branches across the U.S. The game company tells the merchants that they can start delivering highly localized deals to the Moon-ville players inside the game app. All the game company needs are the home addresses.

The stumbling block for Facebook, though, has been how to allow consumers to opt out of this request when it appears on our fake app, Moon-ville, or any Facebook app. Facebook has been trying to figure this out for a while, but I suspect that more level heads within the social network company have counseled extreme caution. You see, they know what I proved above. Opt-out schemes often fail. They do so for a variety of reasons:

People don't read them.

People don't understand them.

People ignore them and think that counts as saying no.

For minor opt-out scenarios like an unwanted newsletter, this isn't a big deal. You end up with Dog Joke of the Day. Getting off that mailing list isn't easy, but I doubt anyone smells the stench of privacy invasion. When you ask for someone's home phone and address, well, that's an entirely different matter.

I understand why Facebook and its partners want to do this. There is a lot of money at stake. Facebook's aspirations do go well beyond being your favorite social platform. I think Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be at the center of every online decision and action you make. Facebook Deals already connects local deals to your account (if you check in via Facebook Places), but what if Facebook introduces an online shopping center; a place where you buy all kinds of discounted goods through Facebook's own virtual Walmart knockoff. If that happens, guess what you'll be dropping inside of Facebook: Your full name, home address, and even credit-card number. And for the great deals you'll get, you'll probably do it willingly.

For now, though, Facebook has no good reason to ask for or share your home address and phone number and you have no good reason to put them on the service in the first place. My suggestion to Facebook is to end this pursuit. Many of your users are already giving you this very personal information, which means you can quietly collect it until you give consumers an excellent reason for you, Facebook, to access it.

A 25-year industry veteran and award-winning journalist, Lance Ulanoff is the former Editor in Chief of PCMag.com.
Lance Ulanoff has covered technology since PCs were the size of suitcases, ?on line? meant ?waiting? and CPU speeds were measured in single-digit megahertz. He?s traveled the globe to report on a vast array of consumer and business technology.
While a digital veteran, Lance spent his early years writing for newspapers and magazines. He?s been online since 1996 and ran Web sites for three national publications: HomePC, Windows Magazine...
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